Legal or not, a new service named NimbleTV plans to let users stream TV subscriptions online -- with or without the distributor’s permission.

Backed by Greycroft Partners and
Tribeca Venture Partners, as well as the Tribune Company, NimbleTV is “offering an online TV platform that allows a customer of a paid TV subscription plan to get their content streamed to them
wherever they are,” GigaOm writes.

Having just entered beta
tests, The New York Times suggests that
NimbleTV “could hasten the slow pace of so-called TV Everywhere” -- if cable companies and distributors don’t pull the plug first.

Along with allowing for thousands of hours
of TV recording via virtual DVR, “the service takes the package of television channels that a customer buys through a distributor like Dish Network, then streams the package onto the Web,
allowing the customer more options for viewing than most distributors now allow,” NYT reports.

Put another way, “it picks up where Slingbox left off,” said Jason Hirschhorn,
a former executive at the maker of the Slingbox, Sling Media, who is now an adviser to Greycroft, and a supporter of NimbleTV.

According to Hirschhorn, planning for the service “took
into account a lot of industry issues,” and he added that it “doesn’t economically harm anyone.”

Yet, referring to NimbleTV and a similar service named Aereo, Dan
Rayburn, principal analyst for digital media at Frost & Sullivan, tells NYT that entrenched distributors are most likely “still going to come after them.” If for no other reason:
“Guys like Aereo and Nimble can’t afford the legal fight,” according to Rayburn.

“One question about this new bid to give TV junkies an easy, anytime fix is will they
be sued like Aereo?” BetaBeat asks.

“Earlier
this year we reported quite a bit on Aereo, a New York startup that offers customers the ability to watch network TV (the free stuff you get over rabbit ears) on any internet connected
device,” VentureBeat recalls. “They are now embroiled in a court battle with the big
networks.”

Doing everything possible to fend off government regulation, Web giants are spending more than ever on their respective lobbying efforts. This quarter, Google spent a whopping $5.03 million on
lobbying fees -- tripling its spend from the same period a year ago -- reports TechCrunch, citing the most recent disclosure reports filed in the U.S. Senate’s lobbying database. By
contrast, Microsoft only spent $1.8 million on lobbying for the quarter. Small by comparison, Facebook doubled down on its own lobbying efforts ahead of its IPO in May. According to TechCrunch, the
social network spent $650,000 on lobbying in the first quarter of the year -- up from $230,000 in the same quarter last year. What issues are Google pushing in Washington? This past quarter,
as TechCrunch reports, Google’s lobbying strategy focused on SOPA, patent reform, data privacy and accountability, online advertising regulation, intellectual property and trademark issues,
cyber security and online privacy, renewable energy, freedom of expression and censorship, immigration reform and the Startup Visa Act, science, technology and math education, free trade, broadband
access, freedom of expression and intellectual property in international trade agreements, “openness and competition in the online services market,” cloud computing, tax reform, and
internet standards of service.
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Could the party already be over for Pinterest? That isn’t likely, but, after losing momentum in March, new data suggests that the picture-based social network is actually losing users, this
month. According to AppData, which monitors how often users of third-party apps and Web sites interact with Facebook, the number of Facebook-connected Pinterest users has declined precipitously the
past 50 days. As Business Insider notes, “most Pinterest users sign-up to the site using their Facebook accounts.” By AppData’s calculations, Pinterest’s monthly active
users are down from 11.3 million on March 1 to 11.15 million on April 1 to just 8.3 million, today. Yet, the decline “probably isn't as scary as it looks for Pinterest,” BI admits.
“The first three months of this year saw an explosion in coverage of Pinterest, according to Google Trends.” A lot of first-timers decided the site wasn’t for them.
Adds BI: “Our guess: Pinterest will continue shedding try-out-the-latest-hot-thing types and then start growing again, the way it used to: through word-of-mouth.”
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Like countless industry leaders before them, are Google and Facebook growing fat, happy, and complacent? Citing their lack of mobile focus as evidence, so suggests Nick Bilton. “This month,
when Google showcased a new design for Google Plus, the company’s social network, it was as if mobile phones and tablets were still a glimmer in some future inventor’s eye,” Bilton
writes on The New York Times’ Bits blog. “The made-over Web site was beautifully designed, but the smartphone app and mobile site were completely ignored.” Facebook’s
willingness to drop $1 billion on the two-year-old Instagram is clear evidence that the social network has also struggling with its mobile strategy. “Its mobile app, which is sometimes painfully
slow, was updated only after the Web site was redesigned for Timeline,” Bilton notes. Bigger picture, Bilton has a theory on why both Google and Facebook have been slow to capitalize on
the shift to mobile. “It’s that working at these companies is like going to work on an all-inclusive cruise ship,” he posits. “The analogy is apt in terms of the luxury -- and
the isolation.”
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